DataDirect SequeLink - 6.0 Release Highlights
DataDirect SequeLink provides a flexible, end-to-end connectivity architecture for companies needing more control of their corporate data access. Key benefits of SequeLink include access to multiple databases via a single API client, built-in and highly configurable security, central administration of multi-database and multi-platform connectivity, and the availability of ODBC and JDBC socket servers to open up access to a range of data stores. It also gives you ADO.NET access to multiple databases with a 100% managed client, offering complete interoperability between databases.
What’s New in 6.0?
Release 6.0 offers a number of significant enhancements to the product:
Kerberos Authentication (aka Single Sign-On)
Kerberos-based authentication allows organizations to create a Single Sign-On environment that bolsters security, eliminates the need for users to log in separately for each application, and reduces the costs associated with managing user accounts. DataDirect's authentication features allow the SequeLink Clients to integrate seamlessly into that environment.
Kerberos Authentication is supported by the SequeLink Servers for Oracle, DB2, and Microsoft SQL Server for the SequeLink Clients for ODBC, JDBC, and ADO.
Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Encryption Support
SSL is an industry-standard protocol for sending encrypted data over database connections. SSL secures the integrity of your data by encrypting information and providing client/server authentication. With Release 6.0, SequeLink ODBC, JDBC, and ADO Clients support SSL encryption to protect critical data that is transmitted between the database and the application, data that could otherwise be compromised.
Connection Failover and Client-Side Load Balancing
With Connection Failover the SequeLink Client continues to retry SequeLink Servers until they connect. You can define a list of available Servers in a connection option and specify how many retries to attempt.
Client-Side Load Balancing allows the SequeLink Client to randomly connect to one of the SequeLink Servers in the servers list to balance the load on the servers. This prevents the Client from always connecting to the first Server in the fail-over list and distributes the load more evenly.
Connection Failover and Client-Side Load Balancing are supported by all SequeLink Clients—ODBC, JDBC, .NET, and ADO for all SequeLink Servers.
64-Bit Support
Organizations are turning to 64-bit solutions for the increased scalability, better performance, and reduced query times that result from the greater memory support and greater processing capabilities inherent in 64-bit platforms.
With Release 6.0, SequeLink Servers can now run as 64-bit applications. In addition, the SequeLink Clients for ODBC now support 64-bit applications. See the support matrix for details on support for 64-bit platforms.
LDAP Support
SequeLink's centralized configuration and simplified administration is further enhanced with LDAP support for all supported SequeLink Clients for ODBC, JDBC, and ADO.
Support for DB2 on z/OS
The SequeLink Server for DB2 on z/OS is now fully Unicode enabled. All SequeLink Clients are now Unicode capable, which means that Unicode, EBCDIC, and ASCII encoding schemes are supported. This reduces the number of transliterations needed to an absolute minimum, resulting in better performance. The 6.0 release also supports Kerberos authentication, connection fail-over and client-side load balancing. The 6.0 release supports DB2 v8 and is certified for DB2 v9.
New Database and Platform Support
- New DBMS support: DB2 9 for Linux UNIX and Windows, Oracle 10g R2, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Sybase 15
- Supports the latest operating systems
- SequeLink 6.0 Client for ODBC on HP-UX PA-RISC 64-bit (note that 32-bit was previously supported)
- SequeLink 6.0 Client for ODBC on HP-UX IPF (both 32-bit and 64-bit)
For more information, see the support matrices.
